Letters to the editor: 06-23-17

Friday

Jun 23, 2017 at 12:01 AMJun 23, 2017 at 9:18 AM

Contributed Content

The Victorville circus

I attended the circus on June 20, 2017. It was the Victorville City Council Meeting. I went to address the city leaders as a small business in the city. I was relegated to the public comment portion of the agenda, almost last on the list.

Public hearings were first. An urgency marijuana ordinance was the hot topic of the day. I watched a novice elected waste everyone’s time by reading the ordinance verbatim. No one listened, much less understood, the words from her muffled voice as it came through microphone. The only words heard were those she emphasized by reason of her personal bias. Her “public has the right to know what’s in the ordinance” was a hollow argument as one presumes that the people that come to speak at a public hearing, do so because they have reviewed the ordinance and wish to advocate a position. The action was grandstanding at best.

The Council Chambers was filled with marijuana advocates. I have seen this before in Apple Valley. There, all advocates spoke responsibly, without anger and advanced arguments in support of their position, receiving cheers and clapping. What I have not seen before was the unruly chaos the advocates in Victorville created. They interrupted speakers, yelled during comments from Council members and when speaking at hearing, instead of staying on topic, strayed into filibuster, bringing up topics that are better suited to public comment. Victorville has no time limits for those speaking at public hearings. This is well and good, as long as comments are relevant to the matter before the Council. But allowing people to stray off of the subject matter of the public hearing, be angry and insulting, is not public hearing process, it is simply disruption.

I left, pulling my comment card. The show was lousy and the ticket of admission was not worth the performance.

I suggest to the Council that when a single matter will consume the majority of meeting time, efficiency dictates you move the matter to the most common sense place in the agenda. Let all others do their business and leave. Then, those driven by special interests will have the Council’s undivided attention.

Diana J. Carloni

Attorney at Law

Victorville

GOP healthcare legislation

I'm increasingly baffled at how so-called conservatives continue to support the acts of our President and the Republican-led Congress. Conservatism, by definition, is a philosophy of retaining and protecting traditions and institutions. Conservatism places a high value on close adherence to the original intent of our Constitution. I'm finding few conservatives supporting these ideals today.

Simply observe what Senate Republican leadership are doing this week. They have excluded the elected representatives of even their own party from the drafting of their legislation to repeal Obamacare. Instead of following the longstanding tradition of working in committees, holding public hearings, and considering amendments, Senate Majority Leader McConnell is letting some staffers write the bill in consultation with lobbyists in secret. It's his intent to bring this bill to the floor and vote within a week, utilizing a provision that's actually for fiscal compliance with budgets — and he's doing it that way because it requires he only obtain votes from his own party. That's so very un-American.

No critical observer would conclude that our healthcare laws are fine as they stand. There were problems with the implementation and continued rollout of Obamacare, which was not a perfect solution even to begin with. But let's be clear: the current work to overturn it is not about making things better for the American people. This is all merely political football, with Republicans trying to score whatever points they can before the 2018 midterm elections. This is about maintaining power through appeasing a very small minority of constituents and finance interests.

So much of our Republic relies on a tradition of shared values and norms across all parties and ideology. It relies on reaching across the aisle to achieve shared goals. You can blame the other side as much as you want, and there are surely valid criticisms about all parties. But, that doesn't excuse the corrupted, completely un-conservative actions of Congressional Republicans as of late. If they're scared of letting their legislation see the light of day, it means they're afraid of public scrutiny. In democracy, public scrutiny is our major tool against tyranny. We should expect better and demand better.

Aaron L. M. Goodwin

Apple Valley

A very bad dream

Recently had a dream. Went something like this. I started supporting the likes of Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, and others of the far left and even the past president, Barak Obama, that one slick, cool dude. I then woke up and said, “self, only when we hear icebergs in hell and six-foot snow piled in Death Valley."

Bob Craig

Apple Valley

Tea Party Revolution

Here we go again. Where has the “insidious radical left” assaulted America, our Constitution and our evolutionary history of freedom? What liberties has big government and the media taken from the American people? Where was this socialism and tyranny under Obama? Where did anyone “allow” radical Islamic terrorism to proliferate throughout the Middle East and around the World? What about all the brave Americans who sacrificed their lives trying to prevent just that? Why do those who continue to regurgitate the far right propaganda they’ve been fed by Fox “News” and the rest of the conservative fake media believe it’s everyone else that has been “indoctrinated”?

The majority of Americans did not elect Donald Trump, they elected Hillary Clinton, who unlike the current occupant of the White House, is highly intelligent and was highly experienced and qualified for the job and would have made an outstanding president. But somehow the archaic Electoral College decided the will of the people meant nothing and they should give the most difficult job in the world to an unqualified, unhinged, fifth-rate reality TV show host with absolutely no relevant experience whatsoever, who is a proven pathological liar, has worldwide financial entanglements he did not disinvest from, suspicious ties to Russia and idiotic ideas that any intelligent person could see were largely illegal, unconstitutional or just plain stupid. This man is not saving America, he’s obliterating it, and most of the world sees it, turning their backs on us and saying they cannot trust the United States anymore.

The reason so many patriotic Americans are demonstrating in the streets, attending town hall meetings, and exposing the un-American acts of the malevolent Republicans, who have once again forgotten the “forgotten man” they lied to to get elected, is because they see that Donald Trump and the Tea Bagger Republicans are the greatest threat our nation has ever faced and that to truly make America great again, they must be stopped. Thankfully, Trump’s biggest enemy seems to be Trump, and with multiple investigations into his misconduct now under way, we may not to have to tolerate his buffoonery much longer.